Jay-Z’s Team Roc facilitates $1M in donations to investigate wrongful convictions in WyCo
Team Roc, the social justice arm of rapper Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, facilitated donations totaling $1 million for the local innocence project to investigate wrongful convictions in Wyandotte County.
Tricia Rojo Bushnell, executive director of the Midwest Innocence Project, said the group worked to get donors to provide the contribution, which equates to about a year’s worth of the organization’s budget for its work in five states, including Kansas.
“It’s a huge investment,” Rojo Bushnell said, later adding in an interview: “The ability to look at these cases ... is really going to continue to shine a light on what we need to do to actually provide a just criminal legal system in Wyandotte County.”
The county has produced serious injustices, including the wrongful conviction of Lamonte McIntyre, who spent 23 years in prison for two murders he did not commit in Kansas City, Kansas. More recently, Olin “Pete” Coones Jr., who spent 12 years in prison, was exonerated of a Wyandotte County murder — only to die from cancer that went undiagnosed 108 days after he was freed.
About 40 other people who were convicted in Wyandotte County have applied for the innocence project to investigate their cases, Rojo Bushnell said Monday.
In September, the philanthropic organization led by Jay-Z filed legal action against the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department seeking the release of investigative files, personnel records and officer misconduct allegations.
Its attorneys said Kansas City, Kansas, officers have abused their authority, fabricated witness statements, planted evidence, concealed misconduct and solicited sexual favors from victims and witnesses. Among its examples are allegations against former detective Roger Golubski, who has been accused of using his badge to exploit and rape vulnerable Black women.
Then last week, Team Roc took out a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post calling on the Department of Justice to investigate alleged misconduct by Kansas City, Kansas, police.
“The police and eyewitness reports of criminal behavior perpetrated by members of the Kansas City, Kansas police department, over the past several decades, are staggering,” it said. “They detail graphic accounts of rape, murder, sex trafficking and corruption so rampant and so blatant, it would be shocking if even a single allegation were true.”
A Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed “receipt for requests for investigations,” but declined to comment further.
This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 6:52 PM.
